Joined: 10 Jul 2006Posts: 907Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:09 am Post subject:

Major Tom wrote:

Agamemnon wrote:

I read "not having troops on active deployment in a foreign country" as pulling all of our troops from everywhere in the world; a very isolationist stance, in my opinion. Perhaps this is not what Monkey meant.

your interpretation using only some of his words is not what he said.

you've taken the comment out of context - he said 'use the money saved...'

expanding that thought to suggest that he stated no soldier should be deployed in any foreign country is overreaching.

Is he not advocating removing our presence in foreign contries to use that money to reinforce aspects in this country? That sounds pretty isolationist to me.

Snorri, I can see that is maybe what Monkey meant. The first time I read it it sounded like he was talking about removing soldiers from wherever in the world they are deployed in whatever fasion they are deployed. That covers a lot._________________-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.

P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!

Joined: 10 Jul 2006Posts: 907Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:17 am Post subject:

I'm not picking on you, Monkey. Just trying to show MT why I thought this was an isolationist approach.

Monkey's comments were broken up into these three sections.

Quote:

Pull our people out of the middle east and afghanistan, use them to secure our borders and ports,

This statement can be seen as something of isolationist policy. Rather than meet the enemy on their battlefield, let's guard our own borders. I don't think that calling this isolationist is out of the question.

Quote:

cut the missile defense system since it really doesnt seem to work, use the money from that to fund putting air marshals on every flight coming to or flying around america.

Definitely not any isolationist statements here. Definitely a plausible argument.

Quote:

Use the money saved on not having troops on active deployment in a foreign country to ensure every city in america has their emergency services available to communicate with one another.

Thanks to the break in mentioning the missle defense system and air marshals, this statement seems to be independent of the first. At least, I can see how two different people will value these two statements differently. Anyhow, pulling troops from deployment in a foreign country, without mentioning a specific foreign country, implies, to me, removing all deployments from all foreign countries; then using money saved on emergency services within this country seems to me to be isolationist.

I don't think my comment was that far out of line, until Monkey clarifies._________________-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.

P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!

Pull our people out of the middle east and afghanistan, use them to secure our borders and ports,

This statement can be seen as something of isolationist policy. Rather than meet the enemy on their battlefield, let's guard our own borders. I don't think that calling this isolationist is out of the question.

Perhaps not out of question, but it seems to me that it's a very liberal definition of "Isolationist." Not having servicemembers stationed abroad does not make a country Isolated. Severing political and economic ties with all nations would. Building a wall along a border would. Bringing soldiers home? I don't think so.

For the record, dictionary.com calls isolationism "A national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries."

Agamemnon wrote:

Quote:

Use the money saved on not having troops on active deployment in a foreign country to ensure every city in america has their emergency services available to communicate with one another.

Thanks to the break in mentioning the missle defense system and air marshals, this statement seems to be independent of the first. At least, I can see how two different people will value these two statements differently. Anyhow, pulling troops from deployment in a foreign country, without mentioning a specific foreign country, implies, to me, removing all deployments from all foreign countries; then using money saved on emergency services within this country seems to me to be isolationist.

I don't think my comment was that far out of line, until Monkey clarifies.

Once again, not being militarily involved with other countries is not isolationism in any definition I've ever seen or heard._________________Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

I'm not picking on you, Monkey. Just trying to show MT why I thought this was an isolationist approach.

Monkey's comments were broken up into these three sections.

Quote:

Pull our people out of the middle east and afghanistan, use them to secure our borders and ports,

This statement can be seen as something of isolationist policy. Rather than meet the enemy on their battlefield, let's guard our own borders. I don't think that calling this isolationist is out of the question.

border security is domestic, not foreign policy, as i said.

afghanistan and iraq are not the only foreign countries, as snorri said.

expanding this thought to equate it with isolationism is out of the question.

Perhaps not out of question, but it seems to me that it's a very liberal definition of "Isolationist."

Sure, it is a liberal interpretation. Maybe I sould have said that it's a bit too much in the isolationist direction for me. Would that have satisfied anybody?

And liberal use of definitions around here is not unheard of, either; especially in terms applied to the Bush Admin and their policies...

Ok, some simple statements:

America is not an isolationist state. You still have a military presence in Germany, Japan, and other countries. Admitting that you fucked up Iraq is not the end of the world, but fucking it up has made the solution to the problem drastically harder to implement. No, I don't know how to solve Iraq, but the current plan is not working, it is getting your soldiers, and the Iraqi citizens killed. "Cut and run" is a epithet directed at people like myself, but I don't consider it an insult to be pragmatic. Being pragmatic would be not sacrificing your soldiers to improve the bottom line of war profiteers._________________bi-chromaticism is the extraordinary belief that there exists only two options
each polar opposite to each other
where one is completely superior to the other.

Joined: 10 Jul 2006Posts: 907Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:24 am Post subject:

kame wrote:

Ok, some simple statements:

America is not an isolationist state. You still have a military presence in Germany, Japan, and other countries. Admitting that you fucked up Iraq is not the end of the world, but fucking it up has made the solution to the problem drastically harder to implement. No, I don't know how to solve Iraq, but the current plan is not working, it is getting your soldiers, and the Iraqi citizens killed. "Cut and run" is a epithet directed at people like myself, but I don't consider it an insult to be pragmatic. Being pragmatic would be not sacrificing your soldiers to improve the bottom line of war profiteers.

I can't say that I fully disagree with you here. Except about America being isolationist, because I did not mean to imply such a thing, if I did. I found Monkey's comments headed in an isolationist direction. I do not think we should go that far, or even as far as Monkey suggested.

I do think that political catchphrases such as "cut and run" are not helpful. I disagree with the idea that we should pull out immediately, but to characterize such a position as such only serves to put people's backs up and make useful discussion harder._________________-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.

P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!

Pulling out of Iraq is not going in an Isolationist direction unless your idea of "Isolationist direction" is any action in which we reduce our military presence abroad. By that "liberal" usage troops returning from duty after WWII would be going in an "Isolationist direction." There's no "Isolationist direction" here.

Joined: 10 Jul 2006Posts: 907Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:08 am Post subject:

WheelsOfConfusion wrote:

Pulling out of Iraq is not going in an Isolationist direction unless your idea of "Isolationist direction" is any action in which we reduce our military presence abroad. By that "liberal" usage troops returning from duty after WWII would be going in an "Isolationist direction." There's no "Isolationist direction" here.

No. I did not say that pulling our troops from Iraq is isolationist.

I said that pulling all of our troops from every deployment worldwide (what I read Monkey to mean) for the purposes of shoring up our own borders is an isolationist strategy. After WWII we left troops deployed in Japan and Germany._________________-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.

P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!

afghanistan and iraq are not the only foreign countries, as snorri said.

Is a decent paraphrase of this:

Snorri wrote:

He [Monkey] only said to pull them out of the middle east and afghanistan.
It's not the whole world.

What is the essential difference in meaning? (Other than the substitution of Iraq for Middle East)_________________The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
- Charles Darwin

Joined: 10 Jul 2006Posts: 907Location: Studying somewhere. Or at least that's where I should be.

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:18 am Post subject:

I read MT's coments as such:

Major Tom wrote:

afghanistan and iraq are not the only foreign countries [Monkey was talking about removing troops from], as snorri said.

When Snorri said:

Snorri wrote:

He [Monkey] only said to pull them out of the middle east and afghanistan.
It's not the whole world.

I am assuming that MT is equating "Iraq" and the "Middle East", right?

So, I read it as Snorri saying that Afghanistan and Iraq are the only countries Monkey is talking about pulling troops from, and MT said that Snorri said that Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only countries Monkey is talking about pulling troops from.

Perhaps I am not understanding MT's statement correctly, but he appears to me to be saying that Snorri said exactly the opposite of what he actually said. MT's statement is a bit short and vague (something I myself am guilty of far too often. )_________________-Agamemnon.....but you can call me Jake.

P: They don't know we know they know we know. And Joey, you can't say anything!

I read MT's statement to mean that pulling troops out of those places did not equate to pulling out of all foreign countries, because Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only foreign countries.

So, it's roughly the same as what snorri said, which is that we wouldn't be pulling our troops out of the whole world.

Of course, I think I'm reading it properly and you are not. However, I believe that on MT's response supports my interpretation._________________The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
- Charles Darwin